Oliver James Flanagan (22 May 1920 – 26 April 1987) was an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as Minister for Defence from 1976 to 1977 and as a Parliamentary Secretary from 1954 to 1957 and from 1975 to 1976. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Laois-Offaly constituency from 1943 to 1987.
He was elected to the Dáil fourteen times between 1943 and 1982, topping the poll on almost every occasion. and remains one of the longest-serving members in the history of the Dáil.
Flanagan was a social conservative, who told Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show on March 12, 1971, that "there was no sex in Ireland before television". An anti-semite and anti-Mason, he used his maiden speech in the Dáil, on 9 July 1943, to urge the government to emulate the Nazis and "rout the Jews out of this country" and called for the banning of the Freemasons.
Nonetheless, he was consistently popular in his own constituency, largely because of the attention he paid to individual voters' petitions and concerns. He has been described as "one of the cutest of cute hoors in the history of the Dáil".
Personal life
Flanagan was born in Mountmellick, County Laois, on 22 May 1920. He was educated at Mountmellick Boys National School and University College Dublin. He then worked as a carpenter and auctioneer. He was a member of the Catholic fraternal organisation the Knights of Saint Columbanus, and in 1978, was conferred a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul I, given in Rome on 20 September 1978.
Political career
Monetary Reform Association (1943–1952)
Flanagan first held political office in 1942, when he was elected as a member of Laois County Council, a position he would hold for almost forty-five years.
He was first elected to Dáil Éireann as an Independent TD for the Laois–Offaly constituency at the 1943 general election – the third youngest person ever to have been elected to the Dáil at that time. He stood for election on the Monetary Reform Association ticket, an anti-semitic and Social Credit party confined to his own constituency which proposed reducing the supposed Jewish stranglehold on the financial system.
During the campaign, Flanagan wrote to Fr Denis Fahey: "Just a line letting you know we are going ahead with the election campaign in Laois–Offaly against the Jew-Masonic System which is imposed on us. The people are coming to us – but it's hard to get the people to understand how they are held down by the Jews and Masons, who control their very lives."
He used his maiden speech in the Dáil to urge the government to use the Emergency Powers Acts to "rout the Jews out of this country":